A Pattern Language for Building for Life: Positive Outdoor Spaces

I got Christopher Alexander(et.al.)’s A Pattern Language from the library a few days back and am just blown away by it. This man had such humble, democratic insights into the task of the architect and a real feel for natural, beautiful,  human and humane living spaces. His book first proposes patterns for building cities, towns, neighborhoods. About …

Riot for Austerity – November and December 2012 – 49-50

OVER FOUR YEARS OF RIOT! Four year summary coming soon (I know, I keep promising) This is the Riot for the months of November and December 2012 for, mostly, the three of us. My summary of our first three years is here. Edson fixed the calculator: all go tither to crunch those numbers! Gasoline.  Calculated per person. …

Solar Hot Water: Going Ahead!

After too many estimates but wonderful and very instructive conversations with installers, we have committed to going solar for our hot water. We got our shade report that tells us that our solar effect of 95.35% qualifies us for the State rebate (minimum requirement is 75%). Our solar fraction is 73.1% which means that solar will provide that …

Amie’s Self-Portrait

Back in the day when this was a Mama blog, I used to report so often on Amie’s art and drawing. There is a whole series about her early drawings on  here, somewhere  (enter “drawing” in the search engine). It caught the attention of Brent and Marjory Wilson, who wrote about Amie in the new …